Lets Talk Football

Oh yeah, there were also moments like this.



Wasn't the England number 10 the splendidly named Tony Woodcock?

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

While I am not going to claim the problems are solved and that the top three better start worrying next season, I am happy and I will support the new manager.

There is basically no other choice for a fan of the club. I supported the appointment of Souness and Roeder in the same vein.

Having said all of that I have changed my fantasy football team name on fantasy.premierleague.com from "Big Sam's Boolacks" to "King Kev's Kahoona's"... now that, is dedication.

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Did you support Allerdyce's appointment? What a thoroughly dislikeable man..

...although now reportedly £8mil richer because he was poor at his job.

I am not too sure why Fat Freddy was so keen. It would have been better if we had kept Roeder with some continuity and given him a summer spending budget.

I just hope now they have appointed their own person, no matter who it was going to be, time is given. Certainly Freddy's hire and fire attitude was killing us.

The debt at the club was worse than it was thought. I don't know how Sheppard managed to hide the true nature as if you are buying a public company you get to look at the books. Regardless, Ashley has spent around £100m more than he thought he was going to just to wipe the debt. Apparently there was a situation where the money from a three-year shirt deal had been spent all at once, things like that.

It looks like Ireland are appointing veteran Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni as their new manager.



I'd love to see his reaction when confronted by Andy Reid and Kevin 'Zinedine' Kilbane in training.

Well... somebody got out of the wrong side of the bed

I'll tell you what does make me sad.
That almost nobody on this forum knows what AFL is.
Or, those who do - not enough to have a conversation with me about it.

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Any game that makes men wear tight tiny shorts is my kind of game

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

It cuts both ways, y'know.




Sooooo, who is the neutral going for tonight? The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea? Russia or America? Chelski or Man Ewe?

I'm trying to make my mind up who I hate less...

Firstly there's Chelsea, built on the back of a Russian oligarch's less than transparent billions and containing such delightful human beings as John Terry, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba etc.

Then there's Manchester Utd and their largely insufferable fanbase, none of whom (apart from my stepdad, who's from Salford) seem to have any connection with the city other than smug glory hunting.

Both sides have players I quite like - Carvalho, Essien, Makalele at Chelsea and Scholes, Vidic, Evra and (even) Rooney at Man U.

The managers are two totally different beasties with the dour 'friend of the owner' Avram Grant for the Blues and the paranoid, purple-nosed shop steward-type agitator Alex Ferguson his Mancunian counterpart.

Ok, I've decided! Because Man U are likely to feature Rio Ferdinand and the little winker Ronaldo in their team I'm, by default, probably gonna 'support' Chelski.

Why can't they both lose?

It wasn't beautiful, but I really think we earned that victory over Greece fair and square. They played like they were defending a 1-0 lead all game! And it's nice to see Ibra scoring for Sweden again.... Great goal! But Spain looks awfully strong. Really impressing against Russia, who actually played quite well before Spain started to score goals.

What do you guys think of the tournament so far?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

So Ibrahimovic finally scored a cracker, eh? I'm not alone in thinking that he's been the most overrated player in Europe (certainly after Christiano Ronaldo evolved from show pony to flat track bully) these past few years. I'd seen his scoring record in Italy but whenever I watched him live he was totally anonymous.

I definitely saw signs of life last night - what a cracking shot.

Other than Sweden (who I might well support for this tournament because they're all so flippin' old - The Wild Geese!), who were not gonna look brilliant against Greece - nobody does, Holland were good, as were Spain and Germany.

Austria played like England - nervously defending for 80 minutes on their 20yd line and giving the ball away far more often than they should. France were extremely disappointing - it's worrying if they're seemingly still so dependent on the missing Viera and Henry, two guys who seem well past their best. They need a good kick up the arse because that squad looks excellent on paper.

Football ain't played on paper though, thankfully.

Ibrahimovic has been seen as overrated in Sweden probably more than anywhere else. I've always thought a lot of the criticism has been unfair since he's got more qualities than just scoring. His assists record in Inter is proof of that. But, yeah, he's scored way too few goals for the national squad than is acceptable for a world class forward. You have to remember though that Sweden in all fairness is a pretty mediocre team while Zlatan in Inter is surrounded by superstars. But last night he proved why he's the best paid player in Italy.

Larsson, last night, was very useful but I wonder what happened to his self confidence. It was almost as he'd been instructed NOT to shoot and to give the ball to Zlatan instead. He had two great opportunities in the first half to bring Sweden ahead but passed the ball instead.....

I think that Italy still will go through together with Holland. Italy played quite well but didn't get along with the (swedish) referee.

I would say that Germany and Spain have made the strongest performances so far. Portugal looks good as well.

The TV commentators were saying exactly the same thing about Larsson last night - why didn't he shoot on at least two occasions?

Great player he may have been but at 36 and in semi-retirement, is that really the way to go in a tournament?

Maybe you should concentrate on building the side around Ibrahimovic, like we do with (Fulham reserve *cough*) Healy, although maybe that was why Larsson was attempting to pass more often than he was attempting to score. With Norn Iron we don't expect our other strikers to score, which is dangerous when Healy's not in form.

If Spain win the title does that mean Northern Ireland are the 'real' European champions? We beat the man who beat the man etc etc

No but since we beat Greece last night, Sweden's officially the new champions.

This has actually been the season when Larsson was supposed to wind down, but he's been really good in Helsingborg (in the swedish league) and everyone here seems to be agreeing on that he still belongs in the starting eleven.

From what I've seen, Spain and Holland have looked sweet as. (And will therefore self-destruct fairly soon, as per usual )

Altho what drug is Bronckhorst on? That's some pacey wingplay for a man in his 30s. (Why can't i do that on a football field? )

Ahh, i feel my diluted drops of Swedish blood wishing that to were so

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Way to go, Croatia! Very impressive. A perfect balance of individual skills and collective team efforts. That I always, out of principle, want Germany to lose doesn't make things worse either.

Bilic's stock as a manager must be sky high by now. If ever a game was won by pre-match tactics it was here.

Expect him to be at a medium-sized European club (think Blackburn, Lyon or Liverpool) before the summer is out.

It's weird how things have changed - International management used to be the pinnacle of the job, enjoyed by those with decades of experience at clubs (and in the case of richer nations, silverware on the sideboard). Nowadays you're just as likely to have a young ex-player in charge of his country, using it as a stepping stone for a better-paid club job.

Klinsmann, Mark Hughes, Alex McLiesh, Bilic (probably), van Basten (probably), etc.

When the young guys have gone off to paycheques new we're left with the veterens, usually 70 year-old Germans who don't want the day-to-day grind of a club job. There doesn't seem much middle ground any more.

Can't blame 'em. Less scrutiny, cushdie 'retirement' paypacket, and only occasional heart attacks, rather than weekly ones

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Just rewatched the Croatia game. Enjoyable on many levels (Totally a team/management effort - but was good to see the Spuds new boy Modric looking very capable - for a man the size of a pint bottle )

In Mrs Merton fashion I will ask, "So, Avram Grant: How stressful was it earning eight million quid for under a year's work?"

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The naysayers seem to be harping on about his apparent weediness as a question mark over his suitability for the English game. Juninho didn't do too bad though...

Quick tip for those who don't know about it - Try the Guardian Daily's podcasts from Euro2008. They may not be quite as wonderful as their normal bi-weekly efforts but they're a refreshing antidote to the banal nonsense which passes for TV punditry (Martin O'Neill and Wee Gordan Strachan excepted).

Link

Avaricious Grant: [DRYLY] "I must now spend this on botox for my eye bags. This is the beautiful game, you know."

Ay, he looks plenty resilient to me. The same's been said of Fabregas too - and i'm kinda hopeful Mod is gonna slot into a similar role (At the risk of comparing us to our fluid North London 'rivals' that is )

Kinda hopeful that Berbs might be happy to stay if we keep adding flair/providers to the midfield (altho lord knows a decent defensive mid would be good too. Current word is Veloso. That'd be bout right ). Plus it seems we ain't gonna sell him unless we get a bundle

And if our iron-plated/heavily-sedated back line can actual stay in one piece, we might do alright

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Hmm - Holland 4 - France 1. How cruel was that on baby-face Thierry? (sweet finish by him).

And just how hard are the Dutch setting themselves up for a fall this time eh?